Real
by ThisIsJayKay
Summary: It's painful looking at the bed. You can almost see James lying on his side, his glasses on the table beside him, arms and legs tangled with a phantom of you. Yet a warm burst of happiness soaks you from inside because you love him and he loves you and when one is living in a war and friends and family are dying every day, there's very little more one can want.


**Author's Note:** _I feel like exploding—too many feels of different varieties swirling within me because of ... well, life. As a result, I wrote this. Helped to vent out some of the claustrophobia._

_As always, the usual note about the fact that I take great care to use British spelling, grammar and punctuation as much as I can with one exception, and that's how I spell "okay". I used to stick to "OK" but the American version looks nicer to me._

* * *

The wind blows. The trees outside creak. You cast a charm around yourself to stay warm. The temperature in the room rises; the temperature of your heart drops.

He's out on another mission for the Order. James. The house is painfully empty without him. The walls seem barer, the furniture seems duller, the very air is infused with fear and nervousness and hope, all at the same time. You walk around the house, up and down the stairs, around the kitchen table, through the living room, into and out of the bedrooms – there are only two, but it feels like an eternity as you go through them. You think it might assuage the jumpiness in you, but it doesn't.

Finally you retire to the room you and James share. Your eyes rove across the bed and your heart and brain and body almost combust because they're hit by too many emotions at the same time. The bed is messy, unmade—you didn't have the heart to make it this morning, not after that grievous meeting with Sirius and Remus and Peter during which you were told about the death of Dorcas Meadowes: you didn't know her personally, but she was a member of the Order like you, she was a fighter like everyone else; she was just another human being, just another soul swept up into a mess out of which she hadn't hoped to come out alive.

It's painful looking at the bed. You can almost see James lying on his side, his glasses on the table beside him, arms and legs tangled with a phantom of you. Yet a warm burst of happiness soaks you from inside because you love him and he loves you and when one is living in a war and friends and family are dying every day, there's very little more one can want.

_Very little more ..._

No. No, you absolutely cannot bring a child into this war. You want to and you know James wants to as well. But it's too dangerous. It would be a terrible injustice to another unborn existence. Besides, you have him. Beautiful, flawed, real: James. Some days you feel almost scared because of how much you love him. You never thought this would happen to you, did you? You've read about this sort of love in books; at times you've wanted it and at times you've felt like an idiot for desiring something so miraculous. But there it is, the connection between you and him. The ties of trust and loyalty and love that bind you are very much there.

You crawl onto the bed and snuggle down on James's side. You hope the scent of his cologne lingers from the night before, but it has diffused and all that's left is an empty bed full of bittersweet memories. You bury yourself beneath the covers. Maybe if you extricate yourself from the world for long enough, you'll end up in some alternate universe where there is no war and no misery and no hopelessness, no bigotry against the blood running in your veins and no prejudice against the values you believe in; a world where you and James can live freely and without fearing every step of your life, a world where you have lots of little babies and Petunia gets along with you and your parents aren't dead.

For a few minutes your wishful thinking renders you oblivious to reality. Then a sudden violent howling of the wind shakes you out of your reverie and you're back in the real world and the anxiety increases every split second.

You don't know how long you've been lying there, breathing in the not-James smell of the sheets, your brain making you hear knocks on the door every second, knocks that bring you terrible news. Once or twice you sit up in bed, your heart beating so fast you wonder how it's anatomically possible, because you think you saw a sliver of silver: a ghost of a messenger that relays agonising tidings, a Patronus that never was.

And then—it's not a figment of your imagination; it's not just another voice without a body in the tunnels of your mind; it's real and present and _there_, just like him and the love between the two of you: it's a warm human voice, cracks in its tone but _alive_.

"Lily?"

One second you're curled up on the bed, the next you've dashed down the stairs and are bounding towards the front door.

"I'm ba—"

He doesn't get to complete the sentence. You're in his arms before he can, and as he stoops to catch your lips with his, the joy at his return floods through you. You've made it through another day, and if all goes well you might make it out to the end of this very much real mess.


End file.
